gamut inc presents the international concert series AGGREGATE:SUSTAIN for automated pipe organs. Digitalisation advances ever further into areas beyond the virtual—for the pipe organ, this opens up new artistic possibilities. All of the instrument’s parameters can now be controlled by computer via interfaces, while the sound is still created in the pipes of the organ. In this way, a meshing of instrumental and electronic music, the possibilities of which are largely untapped, can be achieved. Over evenings of concerts in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, France and Iceland, composers with differing musical backgrounds and orientations have created new pieces for automated pipe organs, which will be realised on special but very different organs. Contemporary electronics, Neue Musik, avant-garde pop and noise music interweave with one another.
AGGREGATE:SUSTAIN pursues the fundamental questions that computer controlled instrumental music poses: virtuosity and its overcoming, the limits of perception of highly compressed musical events, the crossovers and links between electronic and acoustic music, objective interpretation and the effects of mechanically precise reproduction.
The internationally renowned organs in Orgelpark Amsterdam, the Stavanger Concert Hall, Hallgrimskirkja in Reykjavik, Kapelle der Versöhnung or in Auenkirche in Berlin all offer unique technical and sonic possibilities. The number of pipes, timbres of the register, additional striking mechanisms, wind pressure control and the acoustics of the spaces are all very different. The organ inaugurated at St. Antonius in Düsseldorf in 2017 was one of the first in the world to make use of SINUA control technology, in which the registration of the instrument is radically reorganised. The full potential of the organ as a synthesiser unfolds through the instrumentation of the timbres and the selection of pipe sounds. Unrestricted automation of the register makes the creation of completely new tonal palettes possible.
The invited composers explore artistic stylistic devices that only become possible through programmability: automated changes in register, concurrency of different tempos, extreme density of events, complex polyrhythms, aural-physical phenomena, or sliding transitions between tonal, noise and rhythmic. Through automation, the characteristics of the pipe organ as machine and acoustic synthesiser come to the fore, uncovering innovative artistic positions between acoustic and electronic music. Automation, which was already being applied at the beginning of the 20th century, reaches a completely new quality through computer control. Control is now significantly more reliable, register changes and note durations can be adjusted in millisecond intervals, meaning that new acoustic phenomena can be created.
AGGREGATE:SUSTAIN – concert series for automated pipe organs
15.8.2020 | Starts 15:00 CET | Ends 18:00 CET
Kapelle der Versöhnung | Bernauer strasse 4 | Berlin
entrance ongoing & free | there are 20 people allowed to be in the chapel at the same time
http://gamutinc.org | Event @ Facebook
